


Ignition

by cathtice



Series: Incendiary [1]
Category: Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 02:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10548324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathtice/pseuds/cathtice
Summary: Get of Fenris metis don't really play well with others...(Strong language and self-hatred contained therein.)





	

I hate fucking werewolves. 

Get the joke? 

I’m an inbred bitch of a Fenrir, out of Valkyr’s-Tears by Rages-in-the-Dark, born the day before the pair of them went out on a suicide mission and managed to take down a nest of vampires squatting over a new-found Caern.

The songs say they stood back to back under the full moon and slaughtered anything that touched them with axe and shotgun – no klaives for them, dishonoured as they were – till the weapons broke, then on with tooth and claw till the sun rose on the wyrmthings’ ash and their broken bones.

They won back their honour with their deaths. 

I hate them for it. 

They gave me up. 

Every song about them says they were in love, they were each other’s back, they lived and fought and failed and fought and won in death. 

Not one of them says anything about me. 

The Fenrir are a good tribe for metis, say the homid-born and wolf-bred. They don't kick you into a corner, don't beat you for no reason, don't leave you to starve.

You know why? 

They make you do it to yourself. 

Got to laugh. 

*** 

I've got a bit of a temper. 

It's the first thing the den-mother says about me, when there are new people around - she's got a bit of a temper, don't worry about it, it'll be fine, let's move on and see the prettier cubs.

I gutted the first cub to laugh at me - stuck as a gangling five-foot crinos till I was nine, I was clawed and blooded and ripping through his entrails seconds after he prodded me with an oh-so-elegant toe and asked what it was that was in his way.

The second one, I ate. 

Got to laugh. 

*** 

They trained me after I hurt them bad - the youngest cub there. All of _them_ had gone through First Change. All of _them_ had proper lineages they could say without stammering. All of _them_ got to be pretty and gainly and were allowed out to the shops or the films.

I was only being trained because they were scared of what would happen to me if they didn't. 

See, I was born perfect - not a claw out of place or a hair missing, not a stain on my fur or a twist in my limbs. 

So they knew something would be wrong. Something else. Something in my head they couldn't see. 

There were days when I wouldn't get out of bed for fear of what I'd do to people, hiding deep in my den and trying not to claw my furred skin off, trapped in the ugly body. There were days when I didn't sleep, spent the nights tearing my way through the Bawn, up trees and down hills, working out how far I could push the limits of the prison.

They trained most of that out of me. 

Trained with shouts, with discipline, with bloody-minded savagery coupled with the kindness of soldiers who knew what a normal cub's breaking point was.

I wasn't a cub yet then. Couldn't change out of the grotesque glory of my birth-self. 

I wasn't normal back then. Couldn't control myself in play or in study or in practice. 

Now, I’ve got my kin who can ask me to stop and my alpha who I trust - but no one else holds me. Anyone else trying to stand in my way when the red mood's on me better learn to run. 

No one commands me who hasn't earnt the right. 

No one touches me who hasn't first faced me in a rage. I won't listen to anyone who flinches. 

So I bare teeth and breathe rot-meat-breath on their faces. 

Got to laugh. 

*** 

I'm the wolf that chases the sun. 

I'm first into battle and last off my prey. 

I'm the walking dead. 

I'm Skoll-Fire.

And I'm hungry. 

Think it's funny yet? 

*** 

This is a threnody. This is a saga. This is a dirge. 

This is my life, and I can't and won't live it for myself, because I'm waiting. 

I'm waiting to meet my parents again; I'm waiting for them to forgive me for being born. I'm waiting for them to say they love me like they loved each other.

Else I'll die.


End file.
